Magi Classleads/Skillset

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The thing is, staffcast vs shield is in no way comparable to a fully setup retardation room. Shield can be taken down and put back up, or the opponent can move out of reach. Having an unstoppable way to summon a target back into your death-room is too cheap and ridiculously powerful.

What part of tumble onto a monolith didn't you hear? Also adduction is still not unstoppable as it can be blocked by icewalls.

But despite Magi having decent dps potential, there are dragons and other people whom you simply cannot damage outright, which is why it comes to retardation. If they still have a high health pool, you have to both damage them and keep them hindered in retardation for an extended time. Anybody who's smart is going to be doing all they can to initiate a single tumble toward their monolith, and then Magi are left with fewer ways to secure a kill (Hint: zero).

You can slay newbs in retardation all day long, but anyone who understands what retardation does will be expecting it and looking for a way to capitalize. Every failed retardation drop means losing a few of the vibes that make it so threatening.

But back to "unstoppable". At max infusions (6), each took 3s balance. Which means the longest one element will be infused before dropping below 3 is 12s. But only 9 given your final balance recovery. After that, 3s eq/diadem to embed retardation, which means you have 6 seconds that the mass-negation still functions without re-infusing, and your infuse balance is now effectively 4.1s, so while it's maybe smart to squeeze another one in, it will mean not afflicting or damaging in the meantime, the same decision you always face in retardation.

@Xith and co: It sounds to me like you're upset that magi doesn't have a 100% guaranteed kill setup. This isn't a troll, and I know that's not the words you're using, but I think it's the summary of what you're trying to say, without you realizing it.

Magi have massive strengths, and several weaknesses. You have some of the best dps and tanking in the game, as well as sole access to two of the best offensive and defensives abilities in the game, and are the only class in the game that cannot be truelocked, ever. Being weak at chasing and only moderately good at hindrance (anyone who can break legs in a matter of seconds is good at hindrance IMO) are downsides to counter your upsides.

You need to understand that no class has everything... you can't have the best dps, best tanking, best passive/active curing, vibes, retardation, cookie-cutter slow prep abilities (staff/reflect), and then ask for one of the only possible ways to avoid near certain death to your already existing strategies (sigils, which were already nerfed massively once, for you), to be removed or changed. Giving magi any more summon abilities than it already has is also ridiculous, as moving in/out of the room with magi is currently the only possible way for most classes to have a chance of survival, or victory, against magi. Being able to lock someone on full vibes is far too powerful. There are reasons most classes have mobility and/or hindrance avoidance abilities, and vibes are one of them. You're asking to undo that balance.

I'm a huge fan of changing how magi combat works, because frankly it's boring and requires either stupid opponents or cheap methods to kill in solo combat. However that doesn't mean just removing all of magi's weaknesses until it has none.

Edit:

Recommendation: If you're bored / frustrated with magi style combat, maybe you should just play an affliction class. Magi (imo) is a beginner class (with some end-game potential, but still...). Switch to something more challenging, and possibly more rewarding.

actually shecks didn't do too bad a job of summarizing the class there.

Against good, artied fighters magi becomes an RNG or brazier-war class (sigil-war if person wants a mono to tumble to). If you can brazier enough times and afflict correctly, the passive damage or even knowledge or when to damage will kill most people. Otherwise you need some serious RNG to throw off eq/strip metawake/stupidity proc/good amnesia tick. It's a strong class, but requires patience and some luck sometimes. Lethal because of the RNG aspect, for sure.

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Well... cataclysm was supposed to be our answer to LoS but... finding 3 magi in one area? Hah.. only in Cyrene.

Also I agree Magi doesn't need Cataclysm anymore, The class being unfun means not many people will be around of that class for the most part. make Firelash purely los and never missing and magi would have enough los imo.

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as far as magi goes though I think if Retardation was removed and the class was built on another mechanic it wouldn't be so boring in combat.. but some people might actually enjoy magi combat as it is just my personal opinion.

Well... cataclysm was supposed to be our answer to LoS but... finding 3 magi in one area? Hah.. only in Cyrene.

Also I agree Magi doesn't need Cataclysm anymore, The class being unfun means not many people will be around of that class for the most part. make Firelash purely los and never missing and magi would have enough los imo.

NO NO NO NO. Cataclysm should be brought back to an outdoor, area-wide radius. The fact that it's not is, frankly, stupid.

as far as magi goes though I think if Retardation was removed and the class was built on another mechanic it wouldn't be so boring in combat.. but some people might actually enjoy magi combat as it is just my personal opinion.

@Caladbolg I honestly have come to enjoy Magi skills how they are now that I'm more familiar with them. Enchanting is boring and sigil wars get a bit irritating. But I'm not one of those innovative types. I'll take what I'm given and work with it best I can. That way nerfs never bum me out too much. On that note... when your transcendent skill (cataclysm) is pointless 90% of the time, maybe more, it's just a little bit of a bummer.

On the other hand, I enjoy retardation. I don't think it's boring. I think it makes for beautiful moments and nightmares alike. I find it rather interesting. Saying it's a boring tactic is somewhat like saying absolve or catharsis are boring for priests or apostates and they should have it changed so they can enjoy it more. Just a means to an end. Only this time it can be a blessing or curse for groups.

And I don't know who the other two magi are in Targ. I only know of @Mithridates

@Caladbolg I honestly have come to enjoy Magi skills how they are now that I'm more familiar with them. Enchanting is boring and sigil wars get a bit irritating. But I'm not one of those innovative types. I'll take what I'm given and work with it best I can. That way nerfs never bum me out too much. On that note... when your transcendent skill (cataclysm) is pointless 90% of the time, maybe more, it's just a little bit of a bummer.

On the other hand, I enjoy retardation. I don't think it's boring. I think it makes for beautiful moments and nightmares alike. I find it rather interesting. Saying it's a boring tactic is somewhat like saying absolve or catharsis are boring for priests or apostates and they should have it changed so they can enjoy it more. Just a means to an end. Only this time it can be a blessing or curse for groups.

And I don't know who the other two magi are in Targ. I only know of @Mithridates

Personally I found retardation boring when I was a magi.. but I also find brokenstar boring for the same reasons..

If people don't understand how things like retardation or Brokenstar work to start with then they don't know how to get out of the easiest setups for those things.

For instance I can kill about half this game or more on a single legbreak, It's fun at first... but then your over powered and it gets boring. Once you start fighting people who know how to avoid dying to that is when the challenge renters and makes combat exciting again.. Of course this is all just my opinion.

And honestly if you guys are having problems with retardation and need it stronger just go by Lothiac arties. can't even stay in the room with that guy with out dying to passive damage.

Quotes please, because all I see is the majority of people here saying that Magi need some updates to bring it in line with the sigil spam wars that occur vs Magi today, and that this whole paradigm of sigils Vs Magi has made the class more boring than it should be. People say retardation is powerful, and if you disagree with this, you are just ignorant, but I don't think you disagree with this fact (?).

The consensus is definitely not "Magi need nerfs", so enough with this magi victim class before it becomes the new serpent. Propose some decent classleads if you think you have the answer. (you can just ignore Shecks' silly idea. Smells of troll)

I was talking more along the lines of having retardation -strip- speed, if up, every 2-ish seconds, and only affect you if it's not up. It would effectively give a 2-second window to leave. Keep in mind magi also have several means of stripping defences.

Combined with a hindrance upgrade this would be a decent upgrade for solo magi combat. Let's get a weigh-in from some other people who have played magi for more than a few weeks (aka not mithridates)

I was talking more along the lines of having retardation -strip- speed, if up, every 2-ish seconds, and only affect you if it's not up. It would effectively give a 2-second window to leave. Keep in mind magi also have several means of stripping defences.
Combined with a hindrance upgrade this would be a decent upgrade for solo magi combat. Let's get a weigh-in from some other people who have played magi for more than a few weeks (aka not mithridates)

In a 1v1, the magi usually will have to spin retardation and embed it. This already gives you a 2-second window to leave. Upping that to 4 seconds would make Magi only able to kill complete and utter idiots, or newbies who don't know what retardation is.

Magi is fine. Is anybody seriously arguing otherwise? They're fine, 100% a-ok. They need a little quality-of-life love re: vibe management. They natively lack engagement speed as part of the class - it is a weakness, and classes need to have them. Giving them piety or an equivalent would be retarded. This thread is retarded. Can we dampen it, please?

Daeir, no class is fine. Achaea has perpetual bugs and imbalances like any game. The classes who have received the most recent makeover attention (occultist, bard, alchemist) could be considered the most "fine", but since the Eye(tm) is about to fall on Magi, Forestals, and Knights in a sorta big way, we're discussing what actually does need to be changed in Magi.

General consensus: Retardation is not going anywhere, as stated in post #1. However LoS + retardation, probably 3/4 of people agree is unfair and annoying from every angle.

That being said, experienced fighters only lose to the retardation coinflip of having disrupt etc. hit at exactly the right times to prevent tumble and then taking enough damage AND hindering before they get away. You can only spin one set of vibes and spinning them while under fire is dangerous, so you have one shot at your kill and then you basically retreat to spin again.

The big weaknesses are that:

Vibes (appropriately) do not synchronize with ACTIVE abilities in any way that matters outside of retardation. It's appropriate because under retardation active and passive can stack up. But this leaves nothing in particular to capitalize on outside retardation apart from damage stacks, which happen to fall short on people who a) have big health or b) run away

The other issue is that last thing, tanky targets who can't really be hindered. A big culprit is firewall, people are clever enough not to let us put up icewalls, but then they put up firewalls that we have no means of cancelling. Magi need a firewall cancel. Pretty straightforward. Flood would be a fine candidate.

Vibe portability/life. The preparation time and lack of engage doesn't work. Could be any number of solutions: faster spinning time, multiple vibe sets, spinning multiple vibes at once, or a way to hinder the opponent while spinning.

So for the last time, this isn't the "Magi are awesome and okay" thread.

I can't think of any other legitimate ideas except the cataclysm proposal. Nobody seems capable of an original thought that doesn't involve bashing the other people in the thread. Constructive means replacing the ideas you shoot down with better ideas.